Chubby SR Teardown. RESIZED TO 640 X 800 but Still HUGE.

WARNING!! Pics are huge even though they were resized to 640x800.

I picked my Chubby up yesterday and began to tear it down today to get it ready for new parts and a fresh cote of paint.

Part 1


Fresh off my truck.








Are those holes below the word Chubby normal?

I have a lot more pictures but apparently, I'm having some issue with them.

I do have the top off but all of the bolts/screws holding it in place broke. Could I drill what is still in the top out?

If you would like to view all of the images you can look here.

It looks like you have your work cut out. I'd see if you could have it sand blasted. Then you will have a nicer and cleaner surface to paint. I've had an old cast iron furnace sand blasted and after it was painted it looked brand new. I noticed that the previous owner(s) had drilled some secondary air hole vents into the fire door. I'm kind of curious to see how well that works.

I'm sure that your project will be very satisfying and very rewarding when you have restored your Chubby to it's once former glory as you sit in front of the warm glowing anthracite with the blue ladies dancing.

I do have the top off but all of the bolts/screws holding it in place broke. Could I drill what is still in the top out?

Soak them for a few days with your choice of penetrating oil
http://www.seafoamsales.com/deep-creep.html
http://www.kanolabs.com/google/
http://www.blastercorporation.com/
Then use a screw extractor
http://homerepair.about.com/od/interiorhomerepair ... ractor.htm
If that fails some heat will help...
If none of that works you will have to drill and tap...

I have PB Blaster but I can pick up some SeaFoam.

Yeah, I thought about taking it to have it sandblasted but I'm not sure who does that around here. I may have to look in the phone book. : I also didn't think those air holes were normal. As it is I can't get the plate off the window so I am probably just going to splurge on the fire view door.

I'm not sure if you guys looked at the other pictures but the fire pot is in really good shape but it is an older one without the center bar. I was thinking of taking the pot and the new grate to my local steel yard and have them weld a bar across the bottom of it with a piece that sticks up to hold the grate centered. I was wondering if that was a good idea?

There seems to be a few sand blasters near you. I just Googled and found some and the price seems very fair. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ve ... vmwTO1kaUw
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q ... CC8QtQMwAA

As for the fire pot, that is a tough call, it sure is in great shape. I don't have any experience with using a Chubby with anything but Larry's new style grate. I'd call Larry and ask his opinion. Larry will honestly tell you what to do.

You'll be happy with the fire view door too. It sure is a wonderful option. It makes the Chubby so much more elegant.

I just emailed a place in Warwick NY, I'm about 15 minutes from there. Hopefully they are fairly reasonable and I can take the stove over there. Although, I did find a media blaster on Harbor Freight I could buy and do it myself if they are too expensive.

I'm going to email Larry about the fire pot and see if having a bar welded onto it is feasible.

I had to make the same decision, replace the pot with the new design or fabricate a cross piece on the old pot. I decided to replace the pot with the new design. Larry is great to deal with and I figure it would have cost about the same to fabricate a cross piece, also by installing the new fire pot the Chubby stays true to it's design and it is a piece of cake to just drop in the new pot. The new pot cost $199. plus shipping. Not worth the aggravasion to do it any other way. Just my .02.

Good luck with your project! What did you take your pictures with? A scanning electron microscope? They're 1200 x 1600 btw.

If you get a sandblaster tank, remember they take a lot of air, I used to run mine off my Sears 2hp. 20 gal. compressor, had to keep the pressure down to 60psi and the compressor was struggling to keep up. I used to put dry play sand in it, but I had to sift it to get tiny seashell pieces out of it. Still had to clear clogs all the time. I had a homemade cabinet set up for it, but it is hazardous, I wore a respirator when blasting.
Also have an attachment for my power washer to wet sand blast- I did a boat trailer with that a long time ago-- the yard ended up with a huge area of wet sand and paint chips all over it.

What are those extra lugs at the ash door hinges?????

Dann757 wrote:What are those extra lugs at the ash door hinges?????

That is where you used to put the end of the poker after you put the poker through the shaker rod hole. Then you would pull on the poker from front to back to shake the grate. Larry doesn't recommend doing that anymore because is is easier to just put the end of the poker into the shaker rod hole and pull it in and out.

Yeah, I don't know why the pictures were resized to 1200 x 1600 because when I took them I set the camera to 640 x 800. My camera is weird.

Yeah, I emailed Larry to see what he says about modifying the old pot. Heck, worst case scenario I can keep the old pot anyway as a spare. But the last time I had the steel yard do some fabrication for me I had them modify my wood burn and they were very reasonable.

I never thought about that with the sand blaster either, it creating a mess. But I do have a 30 gallon 2.5 hp compressor.

Yeah, you'll need a monster air compressor to keep up with a blaster. I have a 4hp 20gal Campbell Hausfield and I don't think it would do it. Luckily, I have a friend with a machine shop that I can go to. It's only going to cost me the price of media. I bought some "Black Beauty" from Tractor Supply Company. It's crushed volcanic glass and cuts like a hot knife through butter!

I had to drill out the top bolts on mine too. The previous owner must have taken it apart at some point and put carriage bolts in instead of the correct counter sunk type.

Just center punch the head, and start with a small drill and work your way up. I think I went in with a 3/32" drill then an 1/8" and then maybe a #7. Something like that.

Try not to get too big or the 118* drill bit will mess up the 82* seat. If you can get down through the bolt, past the top, you might be able to grab the threads with Vise Grips and snap it off.

Can you tell I've broken a few bolts in my day?

Yup, jpete, it sounds like you might have done this before. How's your resto coming along?

Its about 100* out today. I was planning on taking some pics to add to my Coal Bin thread of where my coal pin is going to go and maybe start drawing it out. I've been soaking the bolts in the top with PB Blaster and plan on going out in a few minutes to drill them.

I know I can get the correct bolts from Lowe's or something. They are like machine screws it seems. I'm also going to try to replace the door pins with maybe brass ones this wayI don't have to repaint them to.

Hopefully I'll get an email from the media blasting company in Warwick by tomorrow with a price. Then I can take the stove down there and have them clean it up.

Just out of curiosity, who is McCarthur? When I was grinding the scale off of the ash door I noticed that name etched into the metal of the door. Is it possibly one of the people who made the stove?

I got the bolts out. I actually center drilled them where they broke then I used a center punch and a 16 oz. hammer and beat them out. Although I did try to drill the first one out through the head.